


The Cursed Sweater

by DancingStarlight



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Eventual Happy Ending, F/M, Firefly References, Fluff, Hoban "Wash" Washburne Lives, I wrote this instead of knitting, Knitting, Miscommunication, Misunderstandings, Old Wives' Tales, References to Depression, Support your local yarn shop, Sweater Curse, Sweaters, or at least his sweater does
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-15
Updated: 2021-03-17
Packaged: 2021-03-24 00:14:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30063726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DancingStarlight/pseuds/DancingStarlight
Summary: Based on a prompt posted on Twitter by @yourfave_goblin: “Rey knits Ben a sweater but doesn’t know about the curse. Ben is aware of the curse and thinks it means that Rey wants to break up. Angst ensues.”For those of you who don’t knit, the “sweater curse” implies that the recipient of your knitted sweater will break up with you during or after construction of the sweater. Like most superstitions, it can be interpreted in more than one way.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 20
Kudos: 67





	1. The Big Damn Sweater

**Author's Note:**

> A big “THANK YOU!” to yourfave_goblin for the prompt and to MissBinx for your encouragement. I hope you enjoy this story!

To say that Rey is obsessed with knitting would be an understatement. 

She knits socks while listening to engineering lectures or watching TV. She works on knitted toys as a way to relax before going to sleep. While walking along the trails near her home or taking the subway to the university, she knits hats and scarves. 

She has never knit a sweater. 

Inspiration strikes while binge-watching _Firefly_ with her boyfriend, Ben, during summer vacation. As soon as he goes back to his place that night, Rey looks on Ravelry to see if anyone has replicated the beautiful cabled sweater that Wash wears in a couple of episodes of the show. She thinks Ben would look gorgeous (more so than normal) in something like that, and she’s beyond excited when she sees that a pattern is available.

It doesn’t take long to order the yarn and needles needed for the project, and she’s happy that the yarn she found won’t break her student budget. As she gets ready for classes to start again the next week, she calculates the number of stitches required for Ben’s sweater by using one of the sweatshirts he left at her apartment for sizing reference. 

Rey creates a spreadsheet to help her stay on track to finish the sweater in time for Ben’s birthday in November. If anything goes wrong, she can give it to him for Christmas or even Valentine’s Day, but she really wants it to be a birthday gift.

The thought of seeing her boyfriend in a sweater that she knit just for him makes her feel giddy. She imagines him being surprised and happy to be considered worthy of such a gift of her time. (He’s had to listen to her indignation at seeing one of her hand knit scarves cast aside by the recipient. Who in their right mind would throw away a merino/cashmere scarf just because it was too soft for his manly neck?)

The yarn arrives a few days later, and for the first time ever, she knits a swatch to make sure her knitting gauge matches that of the pattern. The thick yarn takes some getting used to, but she loves the way it magnifies her stitches and adds so much texture to the swatch. The color is perfect, and she casts on as soon as she’s alone.

💫 💫 💫

A few weeks later, Rey is no longer as confident about her ability to finish the sweater as she was in the beginning. It’s not a difficult pattern, but knitting in secret is difficult when the recipient is practically living in the same apartment. 

Not that she minds spending time with Ben. Not at all. He’s been a wonderful boyfriend, and she’s falling more in love with him every day.

Unfortunately, her spreadsheet shows that she’s already behind schedule, and it’s making her anxious. 

It’s not long before she starts distancing herself from Ben, citing homework and exhaustion as excuses to spend more time working on the sweater.

💫 💫 💫

Ben notices a change in Rey’s behavior as the semester progresses. He knows she has a lot on her plate, and he tries not to be upset when she’s overwhelmed or tired, but there seems to be something else lurking in the shadows. He wonders if she’s already getting tired of being with him, and his insecurities return with a vengeance.

He stops calling her every day. She doesn’t seem to notice.

💫 💫 💫

A week after midterms are over, Rey is finally back on track. The sweater is coming along nicely, and she’s finally feeling better about her progress. She thinks about Ben every time she picks up the project, and she starts fantasizing about how he will react when he opens the gift box.

She even pictures him wearing nothing but her hand-knit sweater, and she has to take a break from knitting to spend some time in her bedroom.

It’s another week before she realizes that she hasn’t heard from Ben in a long time. Their habit of watching TV together every weekend fell to the wayside as she studied for her exams and became obsessed with catching up on her sweater-knitting spreadsheet. He no longer calls to wish her a good night the way he used to. 

It’s too late at night to send him a text or to call, so she decides to wait until after classes the next day.

💫 💫 💫

It’s been three weeks since Ben talked to Rey. He feels forgotten and unloved. He thought that she would reach out to him by now, especially since they normally had pizza and movie nights on the weekends. He wonders if she’s moved on, if she’s just lost interest and forgot to actually break up with him.

He walks past Maz’s yarn shop on the way to and from work every day, and it’s a painful reminder of what he seems to have lost. They spent so much time there over the summer, since Rey always seemed to need yet another skein of yarn for one of her little projects (nothing she had at home was ever exactly right). Ben misses the way she would run her hands all over the sample pieces and the colorful yarn on the shelves, always chattering away about what she would make with this skein of sock yarn and that skein of worsted.

On a whim, he walks into the store during his lunch break. Maz greets him with a loud yell, “Ben Solo!”

“Hey, Maz.”

“Where’s your girlfriend? I haven’t seen her in months! I miss her.”

“I don’t know,” he says quietly. Maz immediately notices the sadness in his voice and asks him to tell her what happened.

“I can’t explain it. We were getting along so well, and I really thought we were happy together. Suddenly, she stopped wanting to spend time with me, and she hasn’t even bothered to call or text in weeks.”

Maz looks at him sharply. “Has she given you a sweater?” 

“What? Why? What difference would that make?” 

“There’s an old wives’ tale that knitting a man a sweater is a sure fire way to cause a breakup. As long as there’s no sweater involved, it’s probably safe to assume she’s just busy with school. She graduates next year, doesn’t she?”

“Yes, she does. And the last time I talked to her, she did seem tired and stressed about her midterms.” Ben feels a sense of hope for the first time in weeks. Maybe she just needed space to focus on school.

Maz smiles. “Buy her a skein of yarn. She always likes to knit toy monsters when she’s stressed, so pick out something bright and colorful.” 

Ben looks through the store and finds a wildly variegated skein of worsted weight yarn that would make a cute monster, and he adds some safety eyes because he knows she’s always running out of those. Maz wraps the yarn in bright tissue paper and encourages Ben to reach out to Rey as soon as possible.

💫 💫 💫

> Rey: Hey sweetheart!
> 
> Ben: Hi, Rey. It’s great to hear from you.
> 
> Rey: Can we get together for dinner tonight? I’m craving pizza, and I am all caught up with my homework.
> 
> Ben: Sure! I’ll come over around 5:30, if that’s a good time for you.
> 
> Rey: See you then! 

When Rey opens her door, she’s surprised to see a bouquet of daisies and a bag from Pirate Queen’s Yarn Shoppe in Ben’s hands. She immediately feels guilty for neglecting her sweet boyfriend, and she all but yanks him inside her apartment. As soon as he sets down the flowers and the yarn, she jumps into his arms and starts kissing him, trying to make up for the weeks they’ve been apart.

Ben immediately relaxes, all of his worries about losing Rey forgotten as she laughingly demands that he carry her to the bedroom.

💫 💫 💫

It’s a nerve-wracking balancing act for Rey to keep up with all of her coursework and the sweater, but she manages to make it work without neglecting Ben too much. She finishes it with just days to spare, and she’s absolutely tickled at how nice it looks. She’s never made anything quite as complicated before, and she’s bursting with pride over her accomplishment.

Her excitement becomes nearly unbearable, and she has to constantly fight the urge to throw the elaborately wrapped gift in his lap before the big day.

They have plans to meet for dinner at his favorite restaurant the night of his birthday, and Rey spends over an hour after class trying to make sure she looks her best. She’s completely caught up with all of her assignments, and she has an overnight bag packed in her car, so she can spend the night at Ben’s apartment. She knows she won’t be able to wait until the meal is over to see him open his gift, so she brings it with her.

Between the parking garage and the restaurant, she realizes that she has never actually seen Ben wear a sweater, and she starts panicking. What if he doesn’t like it? What if he’s allergic to wool? Suddenly, the whole idea of knitting him a sweater seems like a very bad idea, but she doesn’t have anything else to give him. It’s too late to go back now, so she decides to just hope for the best.

💫 💫 💫

Ben arrives a few minutes early, and he asks the hostess to place his bouquet of roses on a secluded table for two while he waits for Rey to arrive. He has decided that what he wants most for his birthday is for Rey to move in with him, to take their relationship to the next logical level. He knows that he will never find another person he loves as much as he loves her, and he’s tired of not being able to spend every single night with her.

A few minutes later, she arrives at the restaurant. After she removes her coat, he is stunned by how gorgeous she looks in her form-fitting green dress, but there’s a nervousness about her that seems out of character. She’s clutching a large flat box to her chest, and she’s chewing on her lower lip as if she’s struggling to keep herself calm.

Ben doesn’t know what to think. Why is she acting so strangely? They’ve been together for eight months, and this is one of their favorite restaurants. She should feel comfortable here with him. He can’t think of any reason why she’d be so nervous, unless she has bad news for him. She wouldn’t break up with him on his birthday, would she?

The thought sends his anxiety through the roof, and he is silent as the hostess leads them to their table.

💫 💫 💫

Rey notices that Ben looks really happy to see her at first, but then he seems to shut down moments later. She wishes she had left the gift in the car; maybe he’s uncomfortable acknowledging his birthday in a public place? She sets the gift box on the floor after he pushes her chair in place, hoping that having it out of sight will help ease the tension between them.

The white roses on the table catch her eye, and she’s stunned at the romantic gesture. “You bought flowers for me on your birthday?”

“Having you here is the best birthday gift I could ask for,” he replies. She blushes and is about to thank him when the waiter comes over and fills their wine glasses. They place their orders, and the waiter leaves.

Rey decides to try small talk to fill the awkward silence. “How was work today? Did anyone wish you a happy birthday?” 

“No,” Ben replies. “I don’t share details like that at work. It was just another day in the office, which suits me just fine.”

“Oh, well, then I guess I get the honor of being one of the first to wish you a very happy birthday, then!” She holds up her glass and clinks it against his, and she notices that his hand is shaking as he holds his glass.

💫 💫 💫

All of the speeches Ben had practiced prior to this date have been completely forgotten by the time the food arrives. He had memorized a list of reasons why she should move in with him, just in case she had any objections, but he honestly thought she wanted to be with him as much as he wanted to be with her.

Her nervousness tonight has negatively affected his mood, and he was suddenly aware that she might not be on the same page, after all. He still doesn’t understand what happened, but her weeks of silence earlier in the semester and her somewhat furtive behavior since then have completely taken over his brain. He can barely look at her, much less talk to her.

What should have been a happy, romantic birthday celebration with the woman he loves has become one of the worst dates of his life.

💫 💫 💫

The waiter asks if they want dessert. Normally, they each get something they like, then they end up feeding each other while seeing which one of them ends up with the messiest face afterwards. It’s one of Rey’s favorite traditions during their date nights.

Tonight, however, she declines dessert. The tension between her and Ben has reached a breaking point, and she’s just anxious to get out of there.

Once the dishes are cleared and the bill is paid, Rey reaches down and pulls out the box. Her hands shake as she hands it to Ben, and she’s near tears as she again wishes him a happy birthday.

He thanks her quietly while taking the box, and he gently removes the wrapping paper. Rey’s leg is bouncing under the table, and she’s wringing her hands. Her nervousness about putting so much effort into a gift that might not be wanted has become overwhelming, and she’s almost dizzy while she waits for Ben to open the box.

💫 💫 💫

Ben doesn’t even want to know what’s in the box Rey handed him. He’s never seen Rey act so nervous and anxious, and neither one of them are smiling. Whatever this is, it’s not something she would give to a beloved boyfriend, and he’s scared that he’s already lost the most important person in his life.

They are in the middle of a restaurant, which means that he has to keep himself together, no matter what happens.

He pulls the lid off the box and looks inside. He sees something made of heavy yarn and knit in an elaborate cable pattern, and he is completely heartbroken when he pulls it out and sees that it’s a sweater.

Maz’s words come back to him. She’s knit him a sweater, which means she’s breaking up with him. His eyes fill with tears as he gently places it back in the box.

“I can’t accept this,” he says, setting the box on the table.

He stands, takes one last look at Rey, then silently walks out of the restaurant.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, the Big Damn Sweater is available as a pattern online at https://sites.google.com/a/yarnmando.com/library/washsweater
> 
> The Sweater Curse usually manifests when the knitter is more committed to the relationship than the recipient is ready to be. However, to fulfill the prompt, I changed it a little bit. 
> 
> This is my very first published story. My only previous experience was an ill-fated creative writing class in college that made me feel like a complete failure, and I’m very nervous about putting this work online. Constructive criticism is welcome, but please be gentle.


	2. Out of Gas

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wash’s sweater appears in two episodes of Firefly, so I stole the title for this chapter from one of those episodes.
> 
> This chapter is entirely Rey’s POV, but Ben’s POV is coming up next.

Rey doesn’t even remember leaving the restaurant and driving home. She misses her classes and hardly leaves her bed the next day.

The sweater is back in its box, sitting on the top shelf of her closet.

She packs all of her knitting projects away. She can’t look at them any more. 

No more knitting socks while watching lectures or TV. No more working on cute monsters while relaxing before bed. Her subway trips to university are now spent staring out the window, and she stops taking her daily hikes through the park.

The brightly colored yarn that used to bring her so much happiness is now hidden in plastic totes, tucked into corners of her closet and under her bed.

She somehow manages to finish her semester with passing grades. She still has a chance to make it into graduate school, as long as she has an outstanding final semester. With no hobbies and no boyfriend, she figures she’ll have nothing to do but study.

💫 💫 💫

Two weeks before Christmas, she acknowledges that Ben is gone forever. He hasn’t contacted her at all since his birthday in mid-November.

She is absolutely heartbroken. 

The presence of the sweater in her closet is a constant reminder that he no longer wants her, so she decides to ask Maz if she would display it in her shop. Maybe someone will buy it for their significant other; she could always use some extra money, and it’s not like she would ever want to give it to anyone but Ben.

Maz isn’t there when Rey arrives, but one of her employees helps her fill out the paperwork to allow the shop to sell the sweater on a consignment basis. Normally, yarn shops don’t consign items made with yarn from other sources, but Maz has always been supportive of her best customers. 

Bazine thinks the sweater will easily sell this time of year, and Rey is more than happy to give the shop 20% of the sale price if it means never having to see it again.

She walks out of the shop and doesn’t look back.

💫 💫 💫

Less than a week later, Maz calls to let her know that the sweater has been sold. 

Rey reluctantly goes back to the shop, and Maz seems very sad when she hands the check to her. “What happened, child?”

“I made the sweater for Ben for his birthday, and he barely looked at it before walking out of my life. I never expected him to dump me over a sweater.”

“You’ve never heard of the ‘sweater curse,’ haven’t you?”

Rey has no idea what Maz is referring to, but as an engineer, she refuses to believe in curses. “A sweater curse? Isn’t that a little juvenile?”

“Yes, but a lot of knitters have noticed that knitting a sweater for someone prior to marriage often ends with the couple breaking up. It may just be a silly superstition, but sweaters are not made on a whim, and it’s a big commitment. Some people aren’t ready to handle the reminder that someone is willing to put _that_ much effort into a gift for them.”

“Oh. That makes sense, I guess. Thank you for letting me sell it through your shop. I hope that the buyer will have better luck with their love life than I did with mine.”

“Rey, don’t give up hope. Ben might just need time to figure out his feelings. I know he really missed you when you stopped calling him a couple of months ago, so it’s possible he was feeling overwhelmed when he saw the sweater.”

“I hope you’re right.” Giving Maz a quick hug, Rey leaves the shop and goes back to her empty apartment.

💫 💫 💫

It’s an alien feeling to have nothing to do with her hands. 

Rey started knitting as a coping mechanism during her time in foster care. The high school librarian ran a knitting club after school twice a week, with donated needles and yarn, and Rey fell in love with the way she could create something beautiful with just two sticks and some fiber.

The fact that she didn’t have to rely on her foster father for the supplies made it all the more precious to her.

It wasn’t long before she could knit without staring at her hands, which made movie nights and boring lectures a lot more productive. She loved being surrounded by things she had made.

She met Ben _because_ of her knitting obsession. 

Maz had given her a job shortly after her arrival in town, allowing her to set her work schedule around her college classes. She literally ran into Ben while rushing to the shop one evening during her junior year. She was worried about being late, she was looking at her phone, and well, Ben wasn’t exactly paying attention, either. 

Thankfully, neither one of them broke their phones or fell to the pavement.

He ended up following her into the store just to get her phone number, and they started dating the very next day.

Since his workplace was so close to the store, he would stop by after work on Thursdays, when Maz hosted her weekly “Stitch and Bitch” sessions. He would sit next to Rey and read a book while she knitted and chatted. The regulars loved seeing the two of them together, and they made Ben feel like he was part of their little family. 

All of that changed when summer break ended. Rey had taken on a couple of extra classes to help her graduate on time, so she stopped working at Maz’s shop. With her hefty course load and an attentive boyfriend, Rey simply didn’t have time to go to the Thursday night sessions, either. Starting the sweater, of course, kept her even busier.

Now she had nothing. No job. No boyfriend. No desire to return to the shop and face her friends, all of whom loved Ben and, like her, would never understand how he could have just abandoned her the way he did. 

How could she ever again look at yarn and knitting without remembering the way he looked when he refused her gift?

💫 💫 💫

The cold, dreary days leading up to Christmas are some of the worst days of her life. She is completely alone, and she no longer has her favorite hobby to keep her focused and happy.

Going to the grocery store becomes excruciating. She used to love the holiday season, but being around people shopping for gifts and planning for parties makes her feel empty and cold. She starts shopping in the middle of the night, since she can’t sleep anyway, and the store is mercifully quiet while most normal people are sleeping.

She notices her clothes becoming a little looser, but since she’s only spending an hour or two outside the apartment, she doesn’t see the point in buying new ones.

💫 💫 💫

With no family and no boyfriend, and with friends who only knew her as a fellow knitter (they never interacted outside of the shop), she spends Christmas alone.

Rey knows that she normally spends the holidays alone, so this shouldn’t be a big deal, but this year is different. 

She remembers Ben mentioning his desire to take her to his parents’ house for the holidays, and she had been really looking forward to spending time in a new city with Ben.

She had fantasized about him wearing the sweater she made when she met his parents for the first time. She had hoped that they would consider her a good influence in his life, especially since he hadn’t seen them in years, and he was only going home because he wanted her to experience Christmas as part of a family this year.

She feels even more alone and lonely now.

Did Ben go home to see his parents anyway? 

Does he regret leaving her? 

Does he miss her? 

Does he still love her?

She cries herself to sleep that night.

💫 💫 💫

The only reason she notices that the new year had begun is because her neighbors across the hall are celebrating very loudly. She just rolls over and pulls the pillow over her head. There was nothing _happy_ about _this_ new year.

💫 💫 💫

School starts again in early January. She somehow manages to make it to all of her classes that first week, but she feels like she is swimming through quicksand. 

Graduation is just a few months away, and she knows she needs to have a strong finish to stay competitive for graduate school. It is so incredibly hard, though. It feels like everything she had learned had been erased from her brain, and every class has become a monumental struggle.

For the first time, she decides to apply to other universities. Rey knows she can’t stay here forever, not now that the man she had wanted to spend the rest of her life with has rejected her. She needs to move on, to start over, and that isn’t going to happen while she is surrounded by memories of him everywhere she goes.

💫 💫 💫

Being back in school is both a blessing and a curse. She is no longer completely alone, but at the same time, she feels like she is simply going through the motions. 

Classes that should be easy are suddenly difficult. People she had happily worked with for more than three years are suddenly too intense for her.

She knows she’s being sullen and borderline rude, but she just can ‘t handle being around people any longer than absolutely necessary.

After the second week, Rey makes a graduation countdown calendar and posts it above her desk. Every night before she goes to bed, she crosses out yet another day.

Another day closer to graduation. 

Another day farther away from Ben.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m having fun with this story! 
> 
> I admit that Rey’s reactions come from personal experience; when I get depressed, I tend to withdraw from my favorite hobbies, too. 
> 
> The angst won’t last forever. There will be a happy ending.


	3. The Message

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, another chapter with a Firefly episode name as the title.
> 
> This is Ben’s POV for the same time period as the last chapter.

Ben drives home in a daze, navigating the familiar landscape is if he’s operating on autopilot.

He walks into his cold, impersonal apartment, and he wishes more than anything that Rey had come home with him after dinner. Her presence always brightened up the place, and when he’s completely honest with himself, he admits that part of the reason he wanted her to move in was to bring her trademarked burst of color and light into his living space.

Her apartment was full of _life_ , despite its small size, outdated carpet, drafty windows, and notoriously finicky heating system.

He knows, logically, that his apartment is much nicer than hers. It’s in a much better part of town, it has a kitchen full of modern appliances, it has a shower big enough for two (which never runs out of hot water), and there’s a soft, sturdy, _quiet_ king-sized bed in his bedroom.

And yet, it doesn’t feel like home without Rey in it.

He calls in sick the next day and hardly leaves his bed.

💫 💫 💫

His work performance suffers a lot over the next few weeks. He’s distracted, he’s heartbroken, and he can barely manage to eat enough to keep his body moving.

He stops running and working out. He just doesn’t have the energy or the motivation to do anything other than the bare minimum to survive.

Ben becomes compulsive about keeping his phone charged and within reach at all times. He keeps hoping Rey will call or text to tell him that she made a mistake and wants him back. He doesn’t understand what went wrong, and the night of his birthday keeps haunting him. He’s analyzed everything that happened between them over the last nine months, but he still can’t figure out why she put so much effort into making a sweater for him.

Why would someone spend so many hours knitting a sweater as a consolation gift for a relationship that’s ending? It just doesn’t make sense.

He hopes she’s doing okay. His calendar reminds him about finals week, and he cries the night her semester ends. He should be at her apartment, celebrating with her. Instead, he’s sitting in his boring apartment in the dark, nursing a glass of whiskey and wishing for oblivion.

💫 💫 💫

Two weeks before Christmas, he walks by Maz’s yarn shop on the way home, as always, but something new catches his eye. He stops in his tracks and stares through the large window at the front of the store. The dressmaker’s form that is normally draped in shawls or scarves is wearing _his_ sweater, with a small price tag hanging from one of the sleeves. 

The shop is just about to close for the night, so he rushes inside and asks the salesperson if the sweater is really for sale. She seems excited to sell it, going on and on about how it just arrived in the shop that afternoon. She’s new, so she doesn’t recognize him from the many “Stitch and Bitch” sessions he attended with Rey over the summer, and Ben is very grateful that he can avoid uncomfortable questions. 

She pulls the sweater off the dress form and wraps it in tissue paper before placing it in the bag. He doesn’t pay any attention to the price, just hands over his credit card and signs the sales receipt. The salesperson keeps trying to make small talk, but all he can do is grunt in reply. When she starts telling him how to care for the sweater, he cuts her off with a frustrated, “I already know.”

Nobody spends eight months with Rey Niima without learning how to take care of hand-knitted items.

As soon as he gets home, Ben pulls out the sweater and studies it carefully. Something about it seems very familiar, but he can’t figure out where he’s seen the pattern before.

He slips it on over his work shirt, and he’s immediately shocked to see how well it fits him. Rey must have figured out his measurements using some of the clothes that he always seemed to leave at her apartment, and it’s obvious that she spent a huge amount of time knitting it for him. 

_Why did she knit a break-up sweater for him???_

Removing the sweater, Ben carefully wraps it in the tissue paper and returns it to the bag. He sets in his closet and tries to forget everything that went wrong.

💫 💫 💫

He cancels his plans to surprise his parents with a visit over the holidays. He doesn’t want to be around anyone right now. They won’t miss him anyway; he hasn’t been home in years.

Going to the grocery store is something he does only when he needs fresh fruits and vegetables. Everything else can be delivered, and he decides that the extra money he spends on delivery charges (and the generous tips he always gives the drivers) is worth every penny when it gives him a much-needed break from the crowds and the noises.

His diet suffers when he decides that he no longer needs fresh fruits and vegetables, but he doesn’t care anymore.

His office completely shuts down between Christmas Eve and New Year’s Day, so he spends that week watching the snow and rain fall outside his window. The cold, dreary weather matches his mood, and he feels so numb inside.

He resents the noise he hears as everyone around him celebrates the start of the new year. For Ben, there’s nothing to celebrate. 

💫 💫 💫

Ben’s calendar reminds him that Rey’s last semester as an undergraduate is about to begin. He remembers tagging along with her while she bought books and supplies at the campus bookstore before fall semester started, listening to her talk excitedly about her classes while loudly complaining about the price of her required textbooks.

He pictures her doing the same now. He wonders if she’s already dating someone else, which makes him wonder if that’s why she stopped communicating with him so often last fall. Maybe someone else had already been lurking in the shadows back then, waiting for her to forget all about her boyfriend. 

Maybe she started the sweater out of guilt for spending too much time talking to someone else.

It makes Ben sad to think that Rey thought she _owed_ him a sweater, that she didn’t think she deserved all of the love he showered upon her during their relationship.

💫 💫 💫

He’s in Target when he hears her voice for the first time since his birthday. A toddler is throwing a tantrum in the middle of one of the aisles, and Rey’s asking the mother if it’s okay to give the child a gift.

For some reason, Rey has a soft spot for small crying humans, particularly if they are dressed in worn clothing and don’t have siblings. She carries some of her knitted toys with her _everywhere_ , and she gives them to random children. 

Ben has never figured out what criteria she uses to determine who is worthy of her gifts, but he loves the fact that she honestly seems to enjoy showering the world with happy little monsters.

It comforts him that she’s still knitting. He can’t imagine her ever giving up on her favorite hobby.

He’s afraid to see her again, though, so he all but runs to the checkout stand and leaves the store as fast as possible.

💫 💫 💫

He runs into Maz a few days later, just as she’s closing her store for the night. He asks how Rey is doing, if she has time to go to “Stitch and Bitch” on Thursdays now that her course load is lighter than it was last semester.

Maz sadly shakes her head. “None of us have seen her since mid-December.”

Ben knows that Rey doesn’t have _that_ much yarn in her stash at home, so she’s either avoiding Maz’s shop, or she’s not knitting as much as she used to. Neither option fits the Rey he knows, so he starts to worry that something is very wrong.

💫 💫 💫

When he gets home that night, he pulls out the sweater again. It’s a beautiful sweater, and he marvels at how much work it had to have taken for her to knit something like this.

Other than the toys she gives to random children, Rey _never_ gives away her knitted projects. 

He asked her about it once, and he will never forgive the asshole who decided that his newly knitted scarf was too “soft and girly” to wear. She had made the scarf as a thank-you gift for all the work the guy had put in during their collaborative project one semester, using the nicest yarn she could afford. He rewarded her efforts by immediately handing the scarf to his girlfriend and making sure Rey knew that her choice of yarn was “absolutely stupid to use for a man’s scarf.”

She emphatically stated that she would _never, ever again_ knit something for a non-knitter after that experience.

(Apparently, the toys don’t count.)

But….

He’s holding a sweater that she knitted herself. One that she obviously knitted with him in mind, because it fits him perfectly. One that is made of quality yarn and a hell of a lot of work.

Maybe she never meant for the sweater to be a relationship-ending gift. 

Maybe she made it for the opposite reason, to show him that she valued him and wanted him in her life, despite whatever curse seems to be tied to the act of knitting a sweater for someone who isn’t your spouse.

He still doesn’t understand.

She had spent so much time avoiding him last semester, and she never explained why. She also seemed extremely uncomfortable when she gave him the sweater on his birthday. 

Nothing about this is making sense to him.

He keeps staring at the sweater, willing it to spill its secrets.

There’s something eerily familiar about the cable pattern on the sweater. He knows he’s seen it before. Where has he seen it? He works in an office where all of the men wear suits, not beautifully cabled sweaters.

For some weird reason, he suddenly thinks of plastic dinosaurs and Hawaiian shirts.

_**Wash!** _

He jumps up and runs to his TV, pulling up _Firefly_ , one of his favorite shows. He remembers seeing a similar sweater being worn by Serenity’s pilot, Wash, and sure enough, the cable pattern is identical.

Memories of last summer rush back to him. They had spent an entire weekend watching every single episode of the show, since Rey had never seen it before. He had several collectibles on his shelves, including replicas of the plastic dinosaurs Wash plays with in one of the episodes. 

She knew the show and all of its quirky characters were important to him, and she had taken the time to find a way to combine her knitting skills with something she knew that he dearly loved.

Despite all of the time he spent with Rey last semester, most of which was spent at her cozy little apartment, Ben had no idea that she was knitting him a sweater. 

To keep such a monumental secret had to have been stressful for her, particularly when she also had to keep up with a very full schedule of senior-level engineering courses.

No wonder she was often too tired to spend time with him last fall. No wonder she started to actually _need_ time away from him. Knowing her, she probably had calculated exactly how many stitches were needed for that sweater, and she very likely had a spreadsheet (with a checklist!) for keeping track of her progress. His presence wasn’t unwanted, after all. She just needed time to knit his birthday gift in secret.

Ben knows one thing for certain now.

He’s an absolute idiot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Today has been exhausting, so I wrote this chapter instead of knitting.
> 
> I have two days, twelve hours to finish the second sock I need to submit in order to qualify for a sock-knitting competition. I have the pattern mostly memorized, and I’m a fairly fast knitter, so I have a good chance of finishing as long as I don’t get distracted.
> 
> Maybe our two idiots will actually communicate in the next chapter. :)


End file.
